


A Master Touch

by Carenejeans



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carenejeans/pseuds/Carenejeans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: "Again I see him, leaning back in one of the luxurious chairs with which his room was furnished. I see his indolent, athletic figure; his pale, sharp, clean-shaven features; his curly black hair; his strong, unscrupulous mouth. And again I feel the clear beam of his wonderful eye, cold and luminous as a star, shining into my brain—sifting the very secrets of my heart."<br/>--E.W. Hornung, An Amateur Cracksman</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Master Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shayheyred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayheyred/gifts).



> Thanks to Tehomet for her usual excellent beta-reading.

I write this, my last chronicle of Raffles, not for publication, but for my own reflection and remembrance. It is doubtless the one adventure I embarked upon with Raffles that would be uniformly decried from all corners, if made known. The common criminal and the highest judge would condemn us equally, and we would look far and wide to find sympathy from any quarter, save for that shadowy parallel world that exists behind a false front of cheerless respectability. And yet it's the one that gives me the greatest pleasure to write, and to remember. To see him in my mind's eye in those most intimate moments we shared so secretly, to feel again all the tumbling emotions Raffles stirred in me, has brought him close -- so close that I fancy I can almost feel his lips against mine, our breath intermingling. Perhaps he is near -- reading over my shoulder! So I sit and write, agreeably haunted by the amorous ghost of A.J. Raffles.

The occasion of our first union was not auspicious. Raffles and I had limped back to his rooms after a disastrous sortie. The owners of the house we had our designs upon were absent, but the place was not deserted, and we were fairly routed by a trio of ruffians who had the same plan as we did. They were criminals of the blackest sort, willing to commit violence to cover vandalism, and Raffles and I were lucky to get away with our skins, though not unscathed. One of the trio had struck me down, and while I struggled to regain my feet, had given me several vicious kicks, doing enough damage that Raffles had to half-carry me the last part of the way home. I was fairly delirious by the time he dragged me over the threshold -- not entirely from the pain, nor from the strong emotions brought on by the night's excitement. It was Raffles's strong, warm arms around me that stirred up feelings in me that I had long tried to conceal, even from myself. I was elated -- and I was scared stiff! My memories of that first time are tinted with the twin shades of pain and pleasure, and to distinguish between them now is impossible.

Raffles laid me down upon his bed, and impatiently removed my clothing to examine the damage. He was served well in our adventures by the bit of doctoring he had picked up among men who injure themselves regularly in the service of sport. He pronounced the injury to my leg to be no worse than some he'd seen on the playing field. But since I was in such pain he suggested I stay in his bed for the night. My delirium had passed and left me in a sort of torpor, so I agreed, and Raffles arranged the bedding around me and made me comfortable.

"Sleep, Bunny. We'll see how you are in the morning." He looked a bit sheepish, as he did whenever our ventures went wrong; contrite that he had led me into danger. This was always after the fact, of course. "I'll watch over you tonight, to be sure you rest well."

"Nonsense," I mumbled with such force as I could muster. "You were struck too, I saw that ruffian take a swing at your head. And he didn't miss."

"It is a bit tender, now that you mention it." He felt his forehead gingerly. "You're right. I should sleep too."

I expected him to take a pillow and decamp to the couch in the sitting room, but to my surprise he stripped down to his underclothes and climbed into the bed with me.

He saw my look of surprise. "This way I can keep a better eye on you. Besides," he admitted with a twinkle in his eye, "my couch is too short."

I had nothing to say to that, so settled into my nest of blankets, while he did the same on his side of the bed. I had not shared a bed with another of my own sex since my schooldays, and it was oddly comforting. I was soon asleep.

I awoke in the dead of night, my leg throbbing, and felt Raffles close beside me. He was half-curled towards me and I could feel his breath on my shoulder. I looked at his face in the pale light coming through the window, marveling at the innocence of his visage at rest. He looked younger, boyish, serene and defenseless -- in the way of a sleeping lion! I smiled to myself, and could have watched him sleep beside me through the night, but the pain in my leg was too irritating. I made an experimental effort to get up by myself, but I was stiff all over; it was clear I would soon wake Raffles with my clumsy thrashing about.

"Raffles," I said softly, and it gave me a thrill to whisper his name in such an intimate setting.

His eyes flew open; he was instantly alert.

"Are you all right, Bunny? What do you need?" He rose even as he spoke, gratifyingly solicitous and worried.

"Just my leg hurting," I said, feeling both abashed by my feelings and irritated by my helpless invalidism.

But Raffles's only thought, it seemed, was for my comfort. He left the warmth of the bed for the chill of the room, and prepared a medication for me. I struggled to sit up to take it, and stayed upright when I was done, awake, restless, waiting for the pain to subside.

"I feel like a turtle on its back," I complained.

Raffles threw back the bedclothes to examine me. "Tell me if it hurts too much, Bunny."  
His fingers gently probed a bruise that had risen under my ribs, and I winced -- though I wasn't sure it was from pain or from the unexpected sensation brought on by his touch. I must have made a sound, because Raffles looked up sharply.

His face changed; his eyes held a speculative look as he laid his hand over my skin, pressing down tenderly, spreading his fingers. The same mix of sensations poured over me, pain overlaid with an extraordinary burst of pleasure. I put it down to the drug, but even as I had the thought I knew I was lying to myself. Raffles's touch thrilled me.

I found it difficult to speak. "My -- my leg," I managed to say.

Raffles studied me carefully, and for a moment I thought he could see in my face ulterior motives. But he turned his attention to my leg, which was, indeed, painfully stiff.

"I know a technique that can help," he said, smiling slightly. "Players are always knocking themselves about and getting themselves kicked. Here, lie back and I'll fix you up." I did as he said, propped up slightly on the pillows, my legs stretched out straight. Raffles went to his dresser and came back with several small pots and vials, which he laid out on the bed. He dipped his fingers in one of them, and then touched my injured leg, spreading an unguent that was both hot and icy on my skin. It made me gasp, which made Raffles smile.

"It's curious how opposite things mix, to produce a wonderful whole. Hot and cold, pleasure and pain –" His stroking fingers illustrated his words. "You and I." His eyes twinkled.

His words were so close to what I had been thinking that I started. "Are we so different?" I said, watching the movement of his hand. I felt strange; I felt I dared not look into his face.

"As night and day, my dear Bunny. I am headstrong, capricious, untrustworthy…"

"Not that!" I said, though I had told him so often enough. "Not to your friends!"

"I have only one friend in the world, my dear Bunny," he said sadly.

"I trust you utterly," I said stoutly.

"Do you?" he said, as if to himself. He used both hands to knead the muscles of my leg, making me gasp again. "Well, so you do -- but that's because of your opposite qualities, Bunny! You are thoughtful, stolid, steadfast. And what do these qualities gain you?" His voice turned brittle and bitter. "I lead you down a pretty path," he said, "to secret crime and ignominy -- to be viciously attacked while caught in a place in which we had no right to be."

"I do it with my eyes open," I declared.

"Oh, Bunny, your eyes are blinded by love." His voice dropped on the last word.

I felt as if I had been struck. We had, of course, declared our love for one another, in the open, casual way of comrades and brothers. The way he said the words now gave them a different meaning, a deeper and more secret cast that took my breath away. I felt his hands upon me were spreading a flame across my skin, my blood was running hot, my face was afire.

I'm far from blind! I wanted to say. I love you at your best -- and at your worst. I envy you your twinkling eyes and high spirits; I admire your iron nerve. I love your buoyant wit, your perfect ease and self-possession, your handsome, taking, daredevil face. Lead me by sly tricks and fiendish cleverness! Be as secretive and as mysterious as you like! I've gone to the devil and I can't go back, and wouldn't if I could. Nothing matters a rap. Nothing but you, Raffles! When you want me, I'm your man!

But I said none of that, too full of feeling to speak, too cowardly to admit what my body was even now proclaiming on my behalf. Raffles smiled down at my lower body's telltale sign. He matter-of-factly re-arranged the sheet to cover me more discreetly. I froze in humiliation.

"That happens," he assured me, as his hands continued to knead their way up my thigh. "I can… take care of that too, if you like," he said with a studied casualness. He looked up at me quickly, to see how I took his proposal. What he saw in my face, I can only guess, but it satisfied him.

"Please," I said -- I had tried to match his casualness but it came out a croak.

Raffles looked at me for a long minute, long enough to make me fear I'd made a terrible mistake; a retraction was upon my lips when Raffles nodded with a strange, crooked smile. He took up one of the bottles and poured a sweet-smelling oil into his hand, then delicately, pulled open my flies and placed his hand on my hot skin.

His touch electrified me. I bucked into his hand and felt I would have spent right then and there, but that he pressed his other hand into my injured muscle. The two sensations, the exquisite pleasure and the more mundane ache, caught me up in a see-saw of sensation. Raffles stroked me to an ecstasy of pleasure that made me -- suddenly and against all he had just spoken -- completely irrational, passionate, and demanding. I wanted more than his hand. I wanted to feel him against me. I didn't want him to 'take care of it' -- I wanted him to make love to me.

Did I say any of this aloud? I cannot remember. I must have communicated my desires somehow, because Raffles abandoned his playing at doctor. In a moment he had pulled off my underclothes, my shirt was opened, he was himself naked, and well-oiled, and straddling me. We slipped and slid together, thrusting and rubbing in shameless abandon, until, shuddering, I felt the strongest sensation of pleasure I have ever felt, before or since, take hold of me, coursing through me like electrical fire, convulsing my body in pleasure, tossing me about like a rag doll until like a rag doll I lay, spent, exhausted, and utterly content, on Raffles's bed, with Raffles lying full on top of me.

Presently, I came to my senses. My leg began to ache afresh. I groaned, and Raffles rose up on his elbows and looked into my eyes, his face open and illuminated with the same desire I felt. I had never in my life been so intimately close to a person, and that, as much as anything else, quite took my breath away. I struggled to regain my composure.

Raffles touched his lips to mine in a tender, searching kiss, and I was again undone.

********

Whiskey and cigarettes were called for, and whiskey and cigarettes we had. Clothed, decent, sitting as two friends on his couch, warming ourselves before a fire, we talked.

"You have done this before?" I said finally.

"Before? My dear Bunny, you offend me! Did it look like a first attempt? Of course I have done it before."

"Often?" The thought of it bothered me more than I wanted him to know, but I blurted out the question nonetheless.

"Well—no! Only with--" but here he broke off, with his clear eye upon me, his smile bright with meaning. Meaning which brought joy to my heart even though he never said the words. I read them all between the strong lines of his smiling, eager face.

He slid from the couch to kneel between my knees. "My dear Bunny," he said, stroking my face with such tenderness that my pain was all but forgotten. "We work together."

The words unfortunately echoed the arguments he used to bring me round whenever I had a twinge of conscience about the way we made our living. 'Work together' indeed, I thought. Raffles, my friend and tempter, are you leading me into more wickedness?

"It's not wrong, Bunny," Raffles said quietly, as if he had read my thoughts. "Against the law, despised by society, but not wrong."

"You argued that the distribution of wealth was wrong, to justify our burglary," I retorted, purposefully using the bald English word for what we did.

"But you can see this is different! We harm no one! Are we trespassing? Are we breaking someone's safe? Are we lifting someone else's jewels -- or merely our own?" He laughed at his small joke. "I know your scruples are strong, Bunny, but you have no need of them here; let them go." The hand that bowled the most puzzling ball in England descended on my shoulder. "Come, Bunny, let me show you. It's better than picking locks, by God!"

He leaned into me to put his lips to mine. I hesitated weakly, to be duly lost.

*********

Whatever twinge of scruples I had about our activities that were, perforce, even more secretive and underground than the others, Raffles dismissed with satirical disdain. Did I think we were the only two in all of London who carried on in such a manner? Raffles named prominent names to convince me otherwise. He most keenly felt the wrong done to some of the most popular sportsmen of the day, scoffing at public opinion that would, ironically, cause those most beloved for their athleticism and masculinity to be, if their secret be known, despised as unmanly.

"Does this make sense, Bunny? The arbiters of general morals can no more see what's before their eyes than a blind man can appreciate the works of Michelangelo. Does ---- (he named a popular cricketer beloved by even the Queen) appear unmanly? Do I?"

I declared stoutly that he did not, and was rewarded by his sparkling eye -- and a demonstration to that very effect. As always, in convincing me to do what I knew I shouldn't, Raffles had a master's touch. In this case I hardly wished to resist him.

Apart from our new nocturnal adventures, our old ones continued apace. By the next week, I was good as new; Raffles's 'technique' worked wonders on both my mind and my spirit. On a night engraved forever in my memory, our activities fell solidly into our old area of disrepute. For we were once again to be found abroad in the middle of the night, in a place we had no right to be, engaged in activities we knew in our hearts to be wrong. That part of the evening I have covered in depth elsewhere. Suffice to say that we were successful, and the spoils of our adventure were distributed among Raffles's pockets.

I had expected that we would return to his rooms as we always did, but Raffles took a notion that we should visit what he called a club. I thought at the time it struck him spontaneously, but in reality he had been contemplating it since that first night together in his bed. I don't know, even now, whether he was drawn to that illicit place by his often perverse delight in risk, or if he took me there because he had decided, as he sometimes did, to test my mettle and my faith in him.

At any rate, instead of making our way directly back to his flat, he steered me in quite another direction. Raffles was familiar with every twist and turn of London's streets; I was not, and was soon lost and bewildered by our zig-zag route through the city, and the only thing I know about our eventual destination was that it was decidedly in the wrong part of town. Raffles always referred to it as a club; but though we entered a building (by means of a special knock and a secret password), we were there but briefly, as we continued down a long, dark passageway to exit by another door at the back.

"Raffles, where have you taken us?" I whispered. "This is -- this is an alley!"

"Quite," Raffles said calmly. "But relax, dear Bunny, it's perfectly safe -- from our side of the law at any rate. Besides, we shall not be here long, and that time, I suspect, will fly by." I could not see his eyes in the darkness, but I could hear the humour in his voice.

"I place myself in your hands, then," I said, trusting in him -- not to do the right thing, for this was not a place for that, but to keep us safe.

He led me deeper into the alley, and it was all I could do to keep the word I had just given. For though the place was dark, and rather dank, and certainly cold, it was not unoccupied. We slid past men in the dark, men braced against the cold brick, men clasped tight together, men making sounds that I had recently heard coming from my own throat -- and it dawned on me suddenly why we were there.

"Raffles!" I exclaimed. "You can't be --" but he closed my lips in a kiss.

I should have protested, but I did not. I should have taken Raffles firmly by the arm and marched us out of that dismal place, but instead I suffered him to undo my clothing with hardly a qualm. For that I was now as excited as he, there was no doubt; in a trice he had me in hand, and I leaned back against the rough brick as if it were the most comfortable pillows in the best of hotels in all of England. But Raffles was not content with that; to my astonishment, he went down on his knees before me, and before I could say a word yea or nay, he had taken me in his mouth. The sensation rocked me back on my heels. I could barely stand, and only remained upright by clutching his curly hair and bracing my legs on either side of him. He made no protest, though I must have pulled hard enough on his hair to cause pain, though I hardly knew it at the time.

It was over quickly, as Raffles had predicted. I could have wished it to have gone on longer -- but in light of subsequent events, it's just as well it didn't. It took me a moment to catch my breath, while Raffles was still on his knees, kissing my sensitive skin, and murmuring words that touched me to the bottom of my heart, even as they sent new thrills over my shivering body. He gently put my clothing to right, which somehow made me all the more excited. My eyes had become somewhat more accustomed to the dark, and I could see his outline in the moonlight. There I stood, looking down at one of my own sex with a keener interest than I had ever brought to any honest -- or dishonest -- member of the fair sex. And there knelt A.J. Raffles, with his black hair tumbled, and the same half-smile with which I have seen him send down over after over in a county match! If the world only knew! If the world could only appreciate this play as it did his prowess in the field!

But the world did not appreciate it, as we were to experience first-hand -- since suddenly, all that was furtive and quiet in the alley was flashing light and motion and panic. "Raid!" the cry went up, and men, white-faced with terror and dread, were running past us.

Raffles grabbed my arm, and we ran. Once or twice we were almost overtaken, but Raffles shot out with a truncheon that I didn't know he had carried with him, and one pursuer went into a ditch, the other flat on his back in the street, only to be trampled by a battalion of his fellows. We pelted through alley and back lot, grimy street and dark lane, to one of Raffles's secret haunts under a bridge, where, gasping, we hunkered down, fearing discovery at each footstep above us, until the day began to break, and the streets began to fill with honest workmen, among whom we could pass as innocents.

"Never again!" I cried as the door closed safely behind us. Raffles made a beeline to the fire and turned on the gas, then to his whiskey and beloved Sullivans.

"Why, Bunny, I'm surprised at you! We're safe -- safe as houses! And so we shall always be if we work together! Partners!" He smiled as if he was invincible, and I stood mulish and sullen as he emptied his pockets out onto the table. "This night has been a success, look at our bounty!" he beamed down at the swag. "This will keep us in funds for some time, and the other," he said, his eyes as mischievous as ever, "will entertain your thoughts for even longer."

"We were almost caught!" I cried. "We could have been sent to jail -- and worse!"

"But we were not," Raffles said calmly, content with his own peculiar logic. He came to me, placed a cigarette in my mouth, and lit it, while I glowered at him. He smiled, and pressed both hands down on my shoulders, pushing me back against the wall, not altogether gently. In a flash I was back in the alley; my blood rose in my veins, my breath came sharply and I coughed. The cigarette fell to the floor, and Raffles laughed.

"Oh, my dear Bunny," said. "My partner, my friend, my --" and he kissed me again.

And so I was again lost, sweetly lost, and so I remained, of my own volition and my own desire, until we were parted finally and forever.

*********

It occurs to me, as I write this account, that my amorous adventures with Raffles could on their own fill as many books as I have already written of our other exploits. This thought gives me pleasure, and much pleasure have I had in setting down these few words. Reliving these moments with Raffles both eases and excites my heart. Perhaps I should go on; for if the world never reads these accounts, I have a feeling my dear Raffles is looking over my shoulder, nodding his curly head with approval -- with a sparkle in his eye and "Capital, Bunny!" on his lips.

\--End--


End file.
